Peak Season for Murder

by Gail Lukasik

  “What would I say? Having a great time, wish you were here?” Julian popped an olive into his mouth and chewed vigorously.

  “Didn’t Nate Ryan write something on it? At least I think it was him. The initials were NR.” I was purposely playing dumb in order to tease out information from the group.

  “Jeez, back to him again?” Matt said. “I thought we were off him.”

  “Oh, you mean Two Shakes,” Harper said. “Yeah, that’s an inside joke. I saw it too and asked him about it.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Something about how long it takes him to seduce a woman. You know that saying about two shakes of a dog’s tail, meaning really fast?” She snapped her fingers. “That’s how long it takes him, and if you think about it, he was pretty much a dog.” She sipped at her beer, all eyes on her. “What? Why’s everyone looking at me like that? I’m not saying anything that wasn’t true.”

  “So he was bragging about his sexual exploits?” I asked. Even factoring in her intoxication, there was something off in her explanation. Was Ryan that egotistical? When he’d written the quote, he was a nobody; not even an up and comer, but just another struggling actor looking for his big break.

  She shrugged her shoulders, causing one of her dress’s spaghetti straps to slip down her arm. “Hey, that’s what he told me.”

  “What do you think, Julian?” I asked. He’d been quiet throughout Harper’s comments, nervously twisting the stem of his empty martini glass in his fingers.

  “If that’s what he said, then that’s what it is.”

  “Here’s your burger and fries, honey.” The waitress put the plate down in front of me and I almost swooned with the aroma. “Another round?”

  No one objected.

  I took a generous bite out of my burger, relishing the charred meat and gooey cheese before continuing. “I thought he might be referring to two Shakespeare plays.” I took another savory bite, chewing in a state of near rapture.

  “As far as I know, the BT has never performed two Shakespeare plays in one season,” Julian said.

  “Except this season,” I said.

  “What difference does it make what it means?” Julian said, annoyed.

  “What difference does what mean?” Everyone was so engrossed in the conversation, no one noticed Nina enter the dining area. She was standing beside our table, holding a glass of red wine. She must have stopped in the bar first. Dressed in skintight black jeans and a lacy red camisole that clung to her like a wet t-shirt, she was oozing sexuality.

  “Oh, Nina,” Julian said. “You decided to join us after all. Let me get you a chair.” He popped up, grabbed a chair from a nearby table and placed it at the end of the table.

  When Nina sat down, she repeated her question.

  Matt jumped in. “That weird thing Ryan wrote on the actors’ wall about Two Shakes. Leigh wanted to know what it meant. I guess he told Harper about it.”

  “And what did he say?” Nina looked to Harper for an answer, her eyes wide with interest.

  As Harper repeated the inside joke, Nina rolled her eyes. “Nate could be such an ass sometimes,” she said fondly.

  Her response was all too rehearsed—the eye-rolling, the wistful tone. I felt as though I was the understudy in a play I hadn’t learned yet. And Nina was both actor and director. My plan to probe the actors about the unknown donor was dashed by Nina’s arrival.

  “Speaking of Nate,” began Matt, who was now slurring his words. “You guys see that article in PopQ? I mean, do you really think Nate could have lived if that chick hadn’t panicked? And that was weird, too. She was a nurse. Shouldn’t she know what to do?”

  “You can’t believe anything that trashy magazine says,” Harper said.

  “Yeah, but you gotta wonder why she didn’t call 9-1-1 right away,” Matt answered. “What kind of a nurse doesn’t call 9-1-1? I mean I even know to call 9-1-1.”

  “That chick is my friend, Lydia Crane,” I said tightly, struggling with my rising temper. I could feel my self-control slip away. I wasn’t letting drunken Matt slander Lydia. “And right now she’s in a Green Bay hospital, fighting for her life because somebody bashed her head in.” I had the good sense not to blurt out anything about the barbiturates found in Ryan’s initial autopsy.

  “What happened?” Harper asked, shocked.

  “The police are calling it a robbery gone wrong, but . . .” I hesitated. How much did I want to tell them? My hunch that Lydia’s attack had something to do with Ryan’s threat to withdraw his donation made me cautious. I glanced around the table, wondering if one of these actors had tried to silence Lydia. If so, my bet was on Nina, who had the most to lose.

  “But what?” Julian asked. “You don’t think it was a robbery?”

  “No, I don’t. I’m the one who found her. And the robbery looked staged to me.”

  “Then why was she attacked?” Harper asked.

  “Maybe some crazy person read the article and wanted to avenge Nate’s death. Like you said, Matt. The chick panicked,” I said angrily.

  “I didn’t know someone attacked her, or I wouldn’t have said that,” Matt responded, his head down.

  That was amazingly lame, but then, what do you expect from a drunk? “I guess that makes it all right then.”

  “Leigh,” Julian began. “Matt doesn’t know what he’s saying. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

  “There’s something you could do, Nina,” I said.

  She looked surprised, putting down her glass carefully as if afraid she’d spill it. “Like what?”

  “Tell me what you did that made Nate want to withdraw his donation?”

  Everyone stared at Nina, waiting for her answer. She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “I already told you Nate never said anything about withdrawing the money. I don’t know why you keep asking me that.”

  I didn’t need to protect Lydia anymore. The damage had already been done. “Because it’s true. Lydia Crane was with Nate before he died. He told her he was withdrawing the money because of something you did.”

  Nina squirmed in her chair. “Well, she’s wrong.” She pushed her chair back slowly and stood. “Look, I’m tired and it’s getting late. I’ll see everyone tomorrow.”

  Then she addressed me. “I’m sorry about your friend. But nothing happened between Nate and me. Nothing. The last time I saw him, he was leaving the party arm-in-arm with your friend Lydia.” She emphasized arm-in-arm. I knew what she was implying. Lydia had been another of Ryan’s conquests, and she was right.

  With Nina’s departure, the festive mood was shattered. We paid our tab and left. On the drive back to the BT, Matt fell asleep in the back seat, his head resting on Harper’s shoulder. This time she let it stay there, falling asleep as well. Julian kept up a polite banter for about ten minutes, and then he fell silent, playing a classical music CD in lieu of conversation.

  As I drove west across the peninsula through the star-punched night, I thought about the abruptness of Nina’s departure and her overreaction to my question about the purported falling-out between her and Nate.

  “Julian,” I whispered. “Do you know anything about a disagreement between Nina and Nate before he died?”

  “Like I told you. Nina was still bitter about the way Nate treated her when they were married.” He spoke softly. “But I never saw Nate show any animosity toward Nina. So no, I never witnessed any disagreement.”

  When I unlocked the apartment door, the fragrant aroma of flowers assaulted me. You gotta be kidding me, I thought as I stood on the threshold, a rush of fear rising up in me. I fished the pepper spray from my bag and went inside, leaving the door open in case I had to make a quick exit. This time Rich had gone too far.

  I flipped on the lights, my eyes drawn to the coffee table where a cut glass vase held a bouquet of red wild roses interspersed with fir twigs. I stepped closer. No note, just the message of the red wild roses—flowers of deep romantic love.

>   The apartment felt empty, but I searched it anyway, finding nothing and no one. Then I went to the door and rechecked the lock. It only worked if I used the key. I closed the door and re-locked it. The flowers had to be from Rich. And as the grounds-keeper, he might have access to all the apartment keys.

  The roses’ scent was cloying and I felt sick by Rich’s intrusion. But there was nothing I could do tonight. I dragged the tweedy blue club chair across the living room and crammed it under the front doorknob. If he tried to get in here tonight, at least I’d hear him coming.

  Once in bed, sleep eluded me. After tossing and turning for a while, I got up, made myself a cup of coffee and watched the morning light slowly fill the apartment. Rather than think about creepy Rich, I mulled over who had assaulted Lydia. There was no doubt in my mind that that person had also attacked me at Lydia’s studio. And though the gold key charm had proven to be Harper’s, I was far from convinced that Harper had been the attacker.

  Whoever attacked me had been looking for something at Lydia’s studio. Had this person found it? Or was that the reason for Lydia’s attack? The person was still looking for it. Or maybe Lydia’s attacker thought Lydia knew something and needed to be silenced. What did she know?

  It all came back to money—the donation to rebuild the new theater. Who stood to lose the most if the new theater wasn’t rebuilt? Not the actors, but the theater’s owners—Nina and Alex.

  I’d only done cursory research for the BT article on Alex and Nina’s roles as owners. Now, in light of what Lydia had told me regarding Nate’s threat to withdraw his donation, their roles bore more scrutiny.

  And if Julian was right, Nina was still bitter about her failed marriage to Ryan. The prospective loss of Nate’s donation could have pushed Nina over the edge.

  The apartment didn’t have wireless, so I threw on a pair of khakis, a t-shirt and flip-flops before heading out to the Egg Harbor Library, the quietest, nearest wireless venue.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: SATURDAY, JULY 22

  The library didn’t open until ten a.m. on Saturdays, so I sat parked directly in front of the building that jointly housed the Egg Harbor Library and the village hall and booted up my computer. The sky was a thin layer of blue, like a stretched balloon, a very stretched, very hot balloon that looked about to burst.

  On the east side of the parking lot, a few tourists milled around the open Visitor’s Center, pointing and turning as if they were lost, which they probably were.

  I Googled Bayside Theater, Door County, owners, and started scanning down page one. About halfway down the first page, I stopped. The heading read: Bayside Theater newest owner. The entry was dated June of this year. I clicked on the entry and a Beverly Hills Hospital newsletter popped up. Under the newsletter’s section titled Doctor News was a short blurb about Theo Sinclair, M.D., a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, who was now part owner of the Bayside Theater. There was no other information given about the partnership or Dr. Sinclair.

  I fumbled around the hospital site looking for the doctor specialty section, then clicked on the plastic surgery section and found Theo Sinclair’s biography, credentials and photo. He’d graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School, completed his plastic surgery residency at UCLA, and was as handsome as the movie stars he listed as clients, according to his bio. He had dark hair and eyes, perfect features, and resembled an older Keanu Reeves.

  Then I exited the hospital site, typed in Sinclair’s name and searched again. There was another short blurb about him when he’d invested in a minor league baseball team approximately ten years ago. Except for Sinclair being single and living in Malibu, I found nothing else of importance.

  What did being a part owner mean? Were Nina and Alex still owners and, if so, how much of the theater did they own? Other than this newsletter announcement, I couldn’t find any other information about this partnership, Theo Sinclair, or this new financial arrangement. The middle of June had been the start of the new season. Why hadn’t the BT put out a press release about the new partner/owner? Why keep it a secret?

  Questions were whirling in my mind. Maybe there was no announcement because there were conditions to this new partnership. Maybe Alex and Nina had to raise enough money to rebuild the theater before the partnership took effect. But then there’d been the announcement in Doctor News declaring Sinclair a partner. Was he also the anonymous donor Nina had mentioned?

  Staring at the fading screen I mulled over who might know about the new partner and would give me a straight answer. Nix Barbara Henry, as well as Nina and Alex.

  Quickly, before the screen went blank, I clicked on the hospital site again and jotted down Sinclair’s office and home phone number. Was there no privacy left in the world? I asked myself as I backed out of the library/village parking lot. Apparently not, and what was I complaining about?

  It was still too early to call the West Coast, so I drove back to the BT grounds intending to soak up more theatrical ambiance for the article. As I turned left into the parking lot, I spotted the BT white cargo van behind me with Rich at the wheel. I pulled into a slot near the dining lodge and he pulled in beside me.

  For a few minutes I sat, considering my options, listening to the ticking of my truck’s engine. My first instinct was to jump out, stomp over to Rich and accuse him of breaking into my apartment and leaving the flowers. But I had no proof. That left me with running off into the woods or onto the beach, which gave him too much power. Or I could act like a professional. I opted to act like a pro. I got out of my truck, gave him a curt nod and started for the white stone path that led past the dining lodge.

  “Buy you a cup of coffee,” Rich called after me.

  I hadn’t slept and was in no mood for his slimy flirtations, or worse, his insults. But I needed to put an end to his stalking me. And the dining lodge offered me the safety of a public place to do that. “You promise not to hit on me if I say yes?” I answered tartly.

  For a minute he didn’t say anything, deciding if he was going to zing me back. “I think I can resist.”

  I followed him into the dining lodge and sat by the window overlooking the bay while he went to the ubiquitous coffee urn, filled two coffee cups, and then carried them over to the table.

  Every table had powdered cream and an assortment of sweetener packets. Rich dumped three packets of real sugar into his coffee and took a sip, not bothering to stir it. Satisfied, he said, “I was out of line the other day.”

  It was too hot for coffee, but I slowly stirred in two packets of artificial sweetener and some powdered cream. It gave me something to do other than look at Rich, who was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and thready cutoff jean shorts and exuding a strong musky scent. Tufts of underarm hair completed his rustic look. “So Ryan didn’t say those things about me?”

  “Not those exact words,” he hedged.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Listen, Rich, you and I are not going to happen.”

  “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

  I wasn’t convinced that he did get that. “Then what do you want from me?”

  “First off, to square things with you.” He looked down at his hands. “Did you like the roses I left you?”

  “Breaking into someone’s apartment is a criminal offense,” I lashed out, not able to hold back any longer.

  “I didn’t break in,” he responded defensively. “I had a key.”

  “It’s still breaking in, key or not.” He just didn’t get it. “And another thing,” I was on a roll. “Have you been stalking me?”

  He leaned back in his chair looking hurt. “Man, you really got it out for me. Anything else you want to accuse me of?”

  “So that’s a no?”

  “Yeah, it’s a no. Geez, you aren’t all that.”

  I looked hard at him, wondering if he was telling me the truth. If he was, then someone else was stalking me, which scared me. Better the devil I know than the de
vil I don’t know.

  “You said first off. Was there something else?”

  “You heard from Bob?” he asked out of the blue.

  “Why would I hear from him?” The way his eyes traveled over my head to the door, I knew he had talked to Bob. “Where is he?”

  “I didn’t say I heard from him.”

  “You didn’t have to. Your eyes gave you away.”

  “Okay, I heard from him. But I don’t know where he is.” He put his hand up a little too close to my face to make his point. “All he said was to tell you something. That’s why I asked you for coffee. Not to get it on with you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “It’s about Danielle Moyer’s disappearance. He found something at the old cabin.”

  “Danielle Moyer? She disappeared years ago. What are you trying to pull?”

  “You don’t believe me, see for yourself. I saved his text.”

  He wrestled his phone from his shorts pocket and scrolled to the text, then slid the phone across the table.

  “Lost Lee’s cell #. Tell her evidence at cabin. Danielle Moyer w/s ghost. Bob” The text was sent today, the sender was Robert Davidson.

  “Did you call or text him back?” I asked, rereading the text.

  “He didn’t answer, so I left a voice message with your cell phone number.”

  “What about the cabin? Did you check it out?” I slid the phone back to him.

  “I haven’t had time.”

  I studied him trying to decipher if he was telling me the truth. It was like staring down a deep well.

  “Do me a favor, will you? Tell Bob that Leigh, L-e-i-g-h, is onto him. And one more thing. My apartment is off limits. You got that? And stop following me around,” I added for good measure.

  It was as if he hadn’t heard me. He grabbed two sugar packets and inched them across the table until their edges touched my arm. I didn’t move, just stared at his dirt-clogged fingernails. “When you change the water in the vase, throw out those yew branches and add a packet of sugar. It’ll make the roses last longer.” Then he took his hand away.